Stratford singer/songwriter offers support to Syria, through music

Updated 5:11 pm, Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Stratford singer/songwriter Dylan Connor celebrates the release of his new EP, "Blood Like Fire," with a performance at Fairfield Theatre Company on Friday, Jan. 17.

Stratford singer/songwriter Dylan Connor celebrates the release of his new EP, "Blood Like Fire," with a performance at Fairfield Theatre Company on Friday, Jan. 17.

Photo: Contributed Photo

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Stratford singer/songwriter Dylan Connor celebrates the release of his new EP, "Blood Like Fire," with a performance at Fairfield Theatre Company on Friday, Jan. 17.

Stratford singer/songwriter Dylan Connor celebrates the release of his new EP, "Blood Like Fire," with a performance at Fairfield Theatre Company on Friday, Jan. 17.

Photo: Contributed Photo

Stratford singer/songwriter offers support to Syria, through music

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By many accounts, the first major crackdown of the Syrian uprising took place on March 20, 2011, when state security forces fired live ammunition into a crowd of protesters in the southern city of Daraa.

At the time, Dylan Connor was 6,000 miles away in Connecticut. But for the Stratford singer-songwriter, the gunshots hit close to home.

Connor's wife, Reem, is from Daraa, and the couple had stayed with her family in the city on several occasions. He ate with them, played music with them, even went clubbing with them.

He counted Reem's family as his own.

"We didn't know if they were alive or not," Connor recalled of the weeks following the initial crackdown, a period in which the city was under constant siege. "It was a new experience of fear and pain."

Thankfully, Reem's family wasn't hurt. Still, Connor, who had grown to love Syria and its people, was devastated by the violence impacting the country. He wrote "Feza Feza" ("Help Help" in Arabic), a protest song decrying the actions of the Syrian government. The song became a rallying cry for many Syrians; an accompanying video racked up thousands of hits on YouTube and received air time on Middle Eastern television. Another song, "Weary World (A Song For Syria)," garnered similar attention.

"I wanted to show that my heart is with the Syrian people," said Connor, who will perform those songs, collected on an EP that was released this week, at Fairfield Theatre Company's StageOne on Friday, Jan. 17.

Recorded at Trout Recording in Brooklyn, N.Y., "Blood Like Fire" is a five-track CD (six if you count a secret song) aimed at raising awareness of the events in Syria and "lifting the spirits of the Syrian people," Connor said.

Many of the songs were inspired by Middle Eastern musical traditions, and feature prominent use of Arabic instruments (oud and darbuka), performances by Arabic musicians (most notably Palestinian composer Zafer Tawil) and choruses sung in Arabic.

Connor also took cues from his father-in-law, an ex-Syrian Air Force general who, along with his wife, Reem's mother, came to live with the couple in Stratford. He would chant the words "Feza Feza" -- a phrase Connor found "very moving, rhythmic."

"I made it the chorus of one of my songs," he said of "Feza Feza."

After writing and recording the track, Connor and a friend produced a video interspersed with footage of the Syrian uprising. The response to it was overwhelming.

"You, my brother, are the true voice of consciousness!!! May you be the first singer to perform live in the Free Syria very soon," wrote one commenter, echoing the sentiments of dozens of other YouTube viewers.

Connor's support for Syria extends to monetary aid. He has organized and played at several benefit concerts in the United States, raising thousands of dollars for Syrian refugees. He will donate procceeds of "Blood Like Fire" to Camp Zeitouna, an arts and sports program for internally displaced children.

But despite all he's done to help the Syrian people, Connor is no longer content to stand on the sidelines. This year, he plans on traveling to the border areas in Syria to teach music to kids in refugee camps.

"I've been writing and singing songs about the Syrian people for three years now," he said. "If I'm going to take on the mantle of having their voice and singing about their plight, I better go to be with them. It will help me to understand what they're going through."

Understanding, it seems, is in short supply. For far too long, Syria has suffered from "the inaction of the world at large," Connor said, adding that people continue to endure atrocities on a daily basis. A serious effort to bring the conflict to an end has yet to materialize.

In the meantime, he said, "we don't have to feel helpless -- we can take action.

"Music can lift people's spirits," he said. "The spirit of the movement is carried by art and music, and if you lose the spirit, you lose the movement."